Politics|When the President Testified: People in the Room Recall Clinton’s 1998 Interrogation

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When the President Testified: People in the Room Recall Clinton’s 1998 Interrogation

The date was Aug. 17, 1998. President Bill Clinton testified before a grand jury. Twenty years later, people in the room and those waiting nearby share their memories.

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President Bill Clinton in the Map Room of the White House on Aug. 17, 1998. Mr. Clinton made a statement to the American people about his relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky.CreditCreditGreg Gibson/Associated Press

The president of the United States was accused of criminal wrongdoing and the time had come to be interviewed by prosecutors. It was a showdown like none other in American history — or so it seemed at the time.

As President Trump and Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, negotiate about a possible interview in the Russia investigation, all sides can turn back to the only real precedent: the time that President Bill Clinton was interrogated by prosecutors before a grand jury watching over closed circuit television.

The date was Aug. 17, 1998. Mr. Clinton was defending himself against allegations that he had lied under oath and obstructed justice during a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by Paula Jones, a former Arkansas state worker, to cover up an unseemly affair with a former White House intern named Monica S. Lewinsky. While Ronald Reagan and George Bush had been interviewed during the Iran-contra investigation, never before had a sitting president given testimony in a case in which he was so clearly a potential target of prosecution or impeachment.

Kenneth W. Starr, the independent counsel, had subpoenaed Mr. Clinton but later withdrew the subpoena after the president agreed to give testimony voluntarily under certain conditions. The session was to take place in the White House, not at the courthouse. Prosecutors would have no more than four hours to ask their questions. And the president’s White House and personal lawyers could be in the room, unlike in normal grand jury proceedings.

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The interview took place in the Map Room of the White House, where Franklin D. Roosevelt tracked troop movements during World War II. Afterward Mr. Clinton gave a speech there to the nation, in which he admitted an inappropriate intimate relationship with Ms. Lewinsky but attacked Mr. Starr for an intrusive investigation. The testimony was videotaped and later provided to the House of Representatives, which released it publicly.

Twenty years later, several of the people who were in the room at the time and those waiting and watching elsewhere in the White House and the Capitol shared their memories of that day in separate conversations. Mr. Clinton’s recollections are drawn from his memoir, “My Life,” and Hillary Clinton’s from her memoir, “Living History.”

Interviews have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

The lead-up

KENNETH W. STARR, independent counsel: We reached a mutual understanding that the president would voluntarily appear and the request was made to withdraw the subpoena.

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Kenneth W. Starr, the independent counsel, near his home in Virginia in September 1998.CreditKhue Bui/Associated Press

DOUGLAS B. SOSNIK, White House counselor and later senior adviser: I felt like whether you testify or don’t testify, that was first and foremost something that the lawyers had to make a decision on.

JOE LOCKHART, White House deputy press secretary and later press secretary: In 1998, I could not imagine a president pleading the Fifth [Amendment]. I don’t even remember there being a serious conversation about it.

JAY APPERSON, deputy independent counsel: The president was invited six times to voluntarily appear before the grand jury and six times declined. The delays, of course, caused the investigation to continue while they were publicly attacking us for, what was it, ‘six years and $60 million’? So the president largely was responsible for that delay for lots of reasons, including the declination to appear while publicly attesting that he was cooperating fully. This sounds very familiar, doesn’t it?

SOSNIK: I didn’t know what he was going to say until that morning. We were briefed a couple hours before he testified. Chuck Ruff, the White House counsel, did not know the full nature of what the president was going to say until that morning because he called me into his office after he had been briefed and he was quite unsettled by the information that he had learned for the first time that morning.

LOCKHART: There was a sense over that time that the entire story was not known and this was the time when we found out what really happened. We had a new reality to deal with.

APPERSON: We did a number of moot practice sessions for weeks on end.

SOLOMON L. WISENBERG, deputy independent counsel: Hickman Ewing, our deputy from the Little Rock office, who’s from Tennessee, pretended to be Bill Clinton to give us a flavor of what was going to happen. We only had four hours. He did a very good job of giving a speech in answer to every question.

STARR: I don’t think President Clinton proved to be quite as folksy as I recall Hickman was. But there were remarkable similarities.

APPERSON: It was supposed to be a two-way video-audio live feed to the grand jurors to allow the grand jurors to directly ask the president whatever questions they had. The day before I received a call from Cheryl Mills [a deputy White House counsel], who said that W.H.C.A. [the White House Communications Agency] could no longer do the two-way feed. It may well be that that was correct. My own view was that was not correct; it was deliberately designed to prevent questions.

BILL CLINTON, president: Starr’s lawyers were trying to capitalize on the setup by getting me on videotape discussing things in graphic detail that no one should ever have to talk about publicly.

WISENBERG: David Kendall [the president’s lead personal lawyer] took Ken Starr aside at the beginning and said, “I’ll fight you to the knife if you try to do anything more than this.”

APPERSON: “If you go to the sex questions, I will cut you to the knife.”

STARR: David asked to step outside the room where everyone was gathering. He was very vigorously defending the president in terms of the president’s dignity and making it clear that the questions should be, as he saw it, very respectful of his dignity.

APPERSON: Starr called us all into the China Room and he recounted this to us. I don’t want to say he was ashen, but he was visibly shaken by this.

STARR: I would leave it to others to describe how I looked.

The testimony

APPERSON: The president shook hands with each of us, knew each of our names. It was the first time I met him. He’s shaking your hand and I felt it — this man is good, this man is good. He’s looking me right in the eye and he’s saying, “Hi, Jay,” and he’s just warmly pumping my hand as if I were the most important person in the world. Damn, he’s good. I felt it.

STARR: There were tables and there were couches. The prosecutors were definitely seated across from the president and the president’s counsel.

WISENBERG: I think I was the first person to speak after he was sworn in. This was Jay’s idea — he said: Let’s talk about the importance of the oath and let’s quote the oath and let’s ask him whether or not he thought that Paula Jones, who was a plaintiff in a sexual harassment case, had the right to have the whole truth. I thought that was brilliant. He didn’t directly answer. He didn’t say yes or no.

CLINTON: I asked to make a brief statement. I admitted that “on certain occasions in 1996 and once in 1997” I engaged in wrongful conduct that included inappropriate intimate contact with Monica Lewinsky; that the conduct, while morally wrong, did not constitute “sexual relations” as I understood the definition of the term that Judge [Susan Webber] Wright accepted at the request of the [Paula] Jones lawyers; that I took full responsibility for my actions; and that I would answer to the best of my ability all the O.I.C.’s [Office of Independent Counsel’s] questions relating to the legality of my actions, but would not say more about the specifics of what had happened.

APPERSON: He reaches into his pocket reading a prepared statement saying, “I am not going to answer your questions.” My God. I thought this was separate grounds for perjury.

WISENBERG: He actually says at the beginning of his statement, “When I was alone with Ms. Lewinsky.” Well, right there he’s admitted both to perjury and obstruction of justice because he repeatedly was asked that [in his earlier deposition in the Jones case] and he would say, “Gosh, I just don’t have any recollection — all I remember is maybe when she delivered pizza.”

STARR: I relied upon the great experience of the three career prosecutors who were conducting [most] of the questioning. My own questioning focused on what I had been concerned about, which had to do with the invocation of executive privilege, the creation of a nonexistent privilege, the so-called protective function privilege [to avoid providing testimony or evidence].

WISENBERG: I was already dealing with a person who had lied in the past and would probably lie to us so I prepared it as a cross-examination.

CLINTON: Starr and his interrogators did their best to turn the videotape into a pornographic home movie, asking me questions designed to humiliate me and to so disgust the Congress and the American people that they would demand my resignation, after which he might be able to indict me.

STARR: We could not ever release that, so I respectfully disagree. I felt we had an obligation, and as I recall there was a grand juror who wasn’t going to be able to see it. We had already made enormous compromises by agreeing to the venue at the White House.

JAMES CARVILLE, longtime adviser to the Clintons: I spent the night before in Brazil and then flew all night and got to Washington midmorning or noon and went over to the White House. I obviously wasn’t in the room when the president was testifying.

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James Carville, right, with George Stephanopoulos, a fellow Clinton adviser, in August 1996.CreditBill Sikes/Associated Press

SOSNIK: We were in the counsel’s office upstairs. It was like being in a hospital waiting room.

LOCKHART: The [CNN game] clock drove me crazy, just how they trivialized something that was really important. I remember calling over to one of the lawyers and just saying, “Are they taking breaks?” And he said, “Yes, there are bathroom breaks or there are legal questions.” I called John King and I said, “Your clock is [bull].” He said, “No, it’s not.” I said, “Don’t you think anyone in the room has to go to the bathroom?” He said, “I get that,” and they took the clock down. It was a ridiculous thing for me to bother one of the lawyers and it was even more ridiculous to call CNN and yell at John King. And as ridiculous as it was, it made me feel great for about five minutes.

CARVILLE: I was pretty pissed off about the whole thing if you want to know the truth. All of this goofy land deal, it was all crap and now it’s something in a civil deposition — I just thought it was way, way beyond anything that had anything to do with being president.

APPERSON: Ken disclosed before the testimony the existence of the blue dress and the semen stain and that the positive DNA test had confirmed it was the president. I believe that no reasonable prosecutor would ever have done that — no ethical requirement to do that and it would be contrary to everything we know as a prosecutor. And yet Ken did that. I have criticism of him doing that as a prosecutor, but my God it speaks to his thorough decency and belies this notion that he was out to get the president.

STARR: Maybe other prosecutors would make a different kind of judgment and think of it more tactically. I thought of it in more historic terms. This was an unfortunately unhappy episode on American history and we needed to bring it to conclusion as quickly as possible. I think we owed the president an extra measure of respect.

WISENBERG: I was kind of obsessed with what his lawyer had done. His lawyer had actually tried in the Paula Jones deposition — Robert Bennett — had tried to keep questions from being asked at all about Monica Lewinsky. Bennett stood up and said: “We object to this. It’s in bad faith. We have an affidavit here [from Ms. Lewinsky] that says there is no sex of any kind going on.” I’m not quoting verbatim. [I asked Clinton about it.] He says, “It depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is.” His point being that because Bennett’s statement was in the present tense that there was nothing technically wrong with Bennett’s statement. The idea was basically that, “Since I wasn’t having sex with Ms. Lewinsky during the deposition in front of Susan Webber Wright, that Mr. Bennett hadn’t said anything untruthful.”

STARR: I think we all took note of it. I certainly wasn’t startled. I don’t recall looking up. I was just listening and taking it all in.

WISENBERG: On the performance level, I thought he was doing very well and was pretty much kicking our [butt] until that statement. He was giving very narrative answers, getting his side out. I thought it was very effective. I mean, he’s a great politician.

STARR: I was taking a lot of notes. I was not making it a point to read body language or glance at his lawyers. I’m a note taker.

CLINTON: I did acknowledge that I had misled everyone who asked about the story after it broke. And I said over and over again that I never asked anyone to lie.

SOSNIK: I thought this was a political exercise with people who had a political objective and were not on the level and that with the proportionality of what he had done and what should happen, that while I was disappointed, I was quite comfortable soldiering ahead on his behalf.

The aftermath

STARR: It was not a scene for a lot of fond farewells. We just gathered up our things quietly, made sure that we had everything that we needed in terms of what we had brought in.

APPERSON: When we emerged out of the entryway, I just remember it was like a deer in the headlights. All these cameras and people were shouting questions.

WISENBERG: One of us said if we were in a lot of other countries, we would be assassinated right about this moment before we leave the grounds.

HILLARY CLINTON, first lady: When it was over, at 6:25 p.m., Bill emerged from the room composed but deeply angry. I had not been present for his testimony, and I was not ready to talk to him, but I could tell from his body language that he had been through an ordeal.

BILL CLINTON: I was visibly upset when I went up to the Solarium to see friends and staff who had gathered to discuss what had just happened.

SOSNIK: We were in the Solarium. He had given his testimony and then he met with his lawyers before the political guys came up. We then had the political guys, myself and Paul [Begala] and James and I think John [Podesta], maybe.

LOCKHART: There was what I call the contrite school of thought, which was take responsibility for his part of this, he’s doing the job and that’s what he would keep doing. And there was a school of thought that now is the time to use the biggest stage available to anyone and take a swipe at the independent counsel in the process.

SOSNIK: I advocated for contrition, lance the boil, get out, say it and let’s be done with it and try to move on.

BILL CLINTON: Everyone knew I had to admit that I had made an awful mistake and had tried to hide it. The question was whether I should also take a shot at Starr’s investigation and say it was time to end it. The virtually unanimous opinion was that I should not.

SOSNIK: I said, “This is why God invented James Carville.”

CARVILLE: There was some kind of sense that if I was out there, then you don’t need to be. “Let James do that.”

SOSNIK: President Clinton had a frustration that basically if no one else was going to call this for what it was, then he was. Because he’d rather do that than leave it unsaid, which is what I think President Trump feels now.

HILLARY CLINTON: I finally said, “Well, Bill, this is your speech. You’re the one who got yourself into this mess, and only you can decide what to say about it.” Then Chelsea and I left the room.

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President Clinton and Hillary Clinton, the first lady, in June 1998.CreditWilliam J. Clinton Presidential Library

SOSNIK: He actually gave two speeches in one — the first half was basically owning up to what he had not admitted in the past and the second part of the speech was an attack on Starr and the investigation.

JAMES ROGAN, Republican congressman from California and member of the House Judiciary Committee who would go on to become one of the House managers in the Senate impeachment trial: I watched the speech. I was kind of surprised by the tone because President Clinton both by design and by DNA is an incredibly charming fellow and, as I recall, the speech degraded from the charm factor rather quickly and it was almost in your face, “this is our business, not your business.” When the speech was over, I turned to my wife and said the tone was rather surprising.

WISENBERG: We all went to Sam and Harry’s [a Washington steakhouse] and got a special room and just unwound. While we’re there, we see him on TV.

STARR: I went to our Brady Bunch house in McLean. I do recall watching the speech. I was disappointed. I’m not going to say I was surprised, but I was disappointed. That’s the best way to describe it.

BILL CLINTON: I believed every word I said, but my anger hadn’t worn off enough for me to be as contrite as I should have been.

ROGAN: What I didn’t foresee was the massive negative reaction. It landed with a thud and was not well received. There was a massive backlash to the speech.

SOSNIK: My view at the end of that day, which was the same as at the beginning of that day, was that the Democrats’ reaction was going to determine his fate. By the end of that day, there was enough feedback that we had gotten from the Hill that we were worried. The Democrats based on that speech were pretty wobbly.

LOCKHART: It was a bad day, a day when we took a step back politically. We were disappointed in getting the truth. Many of us were disappointed that the political strategy that we should have taken wasn’t implemented. But as I said, most everyone, I can’t speak for everyone, we doubled down on our resolve: “Well, we’ve just got to fight our way out of this.”

Peter Baker was one of the authors of the 1998 article that first broke the Monica Lewinsky story and is the author of “The Breach: Inside the Impeachment and Trial of William Jefferson Clinton.”

Peter Baker is the chief White House correspondent and has covered the last four presidents for The Times and The Washington Post. He also is the author of four books, most recently “Obama: The Call of History.” @peterbakernyt•Facebook

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A11 of the New York edition with the headline: When the President Testified: Recalling Clinton’s Interrogation in 1998. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe